First off, the governor of Kentucky signed an executive order yesterday allowing for low speed EVs to legally drive on Kentucky roads.
Today, a news story came out discussing the state's attempts to convince ZAP to build an EV manufacturing plant there.
State officials are in “serious discussions” to develop an incentive package that would help an electric car manufacturing plant to be built in Kentucky, Gov. Steve Beshear announced Tuesday afternoon.
Officials from the state’s Cabinet for Economic Development, including cabinet secretary
John Hindman, were on hand for the announcement.
Local businessmen Larry Cottingham and Randall Waldman, CEO of Integrity Manufacturing LLC, already have an agreement with electric car company ZAP to distribute the company’s vehicles. Cottingham and Waldman now are seeking to build a 1 million-square-foot manufacturing facility to build ZAP vehicles.
The vehicles currently are manufactured in China through a joint venture with Youngman Automotive Group, but Santa Rosa, Calif.-based ZAP does not have a U.S. manufacturing plant.
ZAP CEO Steve Schneider also attended the announcement, after which he and Beshear circled the parking lot in a ZAP Xebra electric-powered truck.
Schneider said the costs of logistics for ZAP have risen in recent years, particularly to ship vehicles from California to the East Coast. A Kentucky manufacturing plant would help reduce that cost, he said.
Beshear also noted Kentucky’s standing as a logistics hub, adding that the area is attractive to distributors because of its close proximity to much of the country’s population.
The governor said state officials will work “daily and hourly” with Waldman and Cottingham, along with ZAP, in the coming days to complete the incentive package.
Pretty cool stuff.
Edited by dana1981 - Wed, 6 Aug 2008 18:36:24 UTC
